Happy Friday: Giving Back By Making Frugal T-Shirt Dresses

Hi Collin! I’ve emailed you before about how I had couponed for my trip to Honduras. Well, I finally got to go and it was awesome!!!! While I was down there I saw where a lady had made 200 of these t-shirt dresses (along with a few pillowcase dresses) to give out. How cute and simple could these be? And how happy these kids were to get them! So we started making them!

I used Kohl’s email coupons to get free little kids t-shirts and we used scrap fabric on the bottom. We found some plain shirts at Michaels and made the pocket tee dresses! Our church has started making these now and taking up little girls clothes (used or worn!) to make them. Here’s a picture of a little girl in Honduras holding her dress and then a picture of the 7 dresses we’ve made!🙂

HAPPY FRIDAY!😀

Do you have a funny, “Hip”, or unique photo to share?! Email us at happyfriday@hip2save(dot)com. Every Friday, I will post one photo, submitted by you and/or another Hip2Save reader, that gives us a glimpse into your frugal lifestyle or simply makes us smile. If your photo is published on Hip2Save, we’ll email you a $10 Amazon e-card!

Caryn F. says:

Angel B. says:

http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com This is another organization. They also have directions & patterns on there site. Caryn you might check your local churchs. Some give them to their missionaries to hand out.

Pam says:

Our church goes on a missions trip to Honduras each year. They’d be happy to bring them along and pass them out. We do lots of medical things snd bring medicines but this would be a great sddition. Send me an email if you’re interested in shipping these to me. .. I can pay your shipping costs to ge them to me. Our trip is annually in july but its never too early to get prepared:)
Mrslandvick@yahooDOTcom

Christine says:

justme says:

Em says:

This is the main reason I coupon- to give out to the real less fortunate people. I send 24x24x24 boxes to the Philippines once a year (shipping is flat rate $75, by ship, no weight limit as long as everything fits in the box!) The Vo5 shampoos that most of use hate? The free bars of soap and tubes of toothpastes that we get for free? The free snacks and canned goods? I send them all to the Philippines! I rarely send clothes because they mostly care for food only that health & beauty products are “blessings” to them=)

nina says:

VictoriaBF says:

Kristen says:

Hey guys!!! Thanks for your interest in the dresses! If y’all want to make some id pay shipping if you’d like to send them too me! I’m trying to get as many as possible for my trip next year!🙂🙂 thanks soooo much!!! (I’m not familiar with the dresses for Africa)

Deana says:

Katrina says:

Melissa says:

Caroline says:

There is a similar organization located in west TN that takes tshirts of any kind and turns them into little girls/tween dresses and sells them. The purpose is to help women who have been marginalized from the mainstream workforce by bringing them into a positive, life changing environment and give them a true purpose in life. Their website is wearoneshareone.org
They are always accepting t-shirt donations🙂

Cara says:

That’s a great idea — these are really cute, but anytime clothes are donated, it takes away from the local economy and the seamstresses there. Donating shirts to a place that helps women make a living by seeing them themselves is an excellent option!

You are probably right. I would like to comment that sometimes though, just the act of getting something from someone far away carries a bigger message than the cost of the item (or loss to the local seamstresses). It sends the message that someone they don’t know cares about them, that they are worth caring about. And usually, these girls are poor and their parents would not buy them extra clothes.

I know when I sew something for a child, I pray a blessing for them and their family as I am sewing.

Also, when I lived in Manila, my mother would send lots of boughten clothes for my cousins in the countryside even though all my aunts are awesome seamstresses! They didn’t mind.

Jodi says:

I clicked on Caroline’s link. The organization hires defranchised women in the US to make clothes from t-shirts and then they sell them. The product is similar, but the purpose and beneficiaries are different.

Cara says:

I totally agree about giving them things showing them that someone cares — it’s just clothes specifically that most organizations that work in country actually ask not be sent because of the huge impact it has on local economies. We sponsor kids in Haiti and Kenya and regularly send them letters and things like puzzles, stickers, bracelets, pencils, paper, etc. There are a lot of things we can send other than clothes.
Again, I love the thought behind this absolutely! It’s just one of those areas to be big picture about and consider the long term impact on an entire economy when by giving out clothing, you take away the entire work of a group of people:(. And maybe one dress per kid won’t do that, hopefully? But in an impoverished area it might…

Casey says:

Tonya says:

Kerri S says:

This is super cute and sweet. But what about little boys? As a mother to only boys, twin boys, its sad that they are often left out. There is another organization for cancer, that does bows for little girls. What about boys with cancer? I guess dresses and boys are easier to make than say ball caps or capes, etc. But don’t forget the boys too! I don’t sew, so I don’t have a dog in that fight, but little boys want that just as much, even if they act like they don’t! I do OCC for that reason and only do boys. If anyone knows of an organization that does boys only or boys along with girls, I’ll happily donate funds, not sewing, since I don’t do that!

Kristen says:

I don’t know what they do for little boys but the team leader of our group called me yesterday and asked would I be interested in making the cloth diapers for all the little kids? Because some have the dresses but nothing under them😦 I remember because we had a little girl pee on the floor during church service..it’s sad tho

Kristen says:

and I forgot to mention they had thousands..literally thousands of baseball caps to give out to everyone down there. The women would ask for them for working out in the sun but we made sure they went to all the little boys and men first

Jennifer says:

That little girl is soooo happy with a simple dress shirt… Kids these days are just not happy unless its some type of $$$ electronic. So sweet! God bless your hard work. Something so simple. Her smile says it all.

nel says:

Jessica says:

Stories like this are the type of things I like to read about. This should be on my Yahoo news feed instead of stories about celebrity weight loss/gain and “who wore it better stories” Thank you to the people who post these stories and thank you to the people who think about others and take time out of their day to help others!